I contacted Thomson Reuters customer support. Their explanation is pasted below.

The Science Citation Index (SCI) is a sub-set of the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE), containing journals that rank competitively among the most highly-cited core journals in their category or categories. The Science Citation Index Expanded is essentially the web version of what used to be a database available only on CDRom/Diskette.

When selecting the journals for the Science Citation Index we choose the top journals from each subject category and supplement this with top regional journals from each category to give broad geographic and multidisciplinary coverage.

The evaluation of and acceptance of a journal for the Science Citation Index Expanded or the Science Citation Index is essentially the same with one major difference.

This difference is in the application of citation analysis to the journal. While every science journal in our database is covered in the Science Citation Index Expanded and only those journals of relatively significantly higher citation impact are selected for the Science Citation Index. In other words, Science Citation Index covers only the most highly cited, highest impact journals in each category. This is because of the constraints of the CDROM and print media there is no difference in the selection process for Science Citation Index and Science Citation Index Expanded journals.

Anybody can contact them for clarifications.

Asia Pacific Customer Support

Thomson Reuters

India Toll-free: 0008004402182

.SCIENCE CITATION INDEX EXPANDED provides more information about journal,book and proceedings submission to Web of Science.

Trends in research on global climate change: A Science Citation Index Expanded-based analysis study was conceived to evaluate the global scientific output of climate change research over the past 18 years and to assess the characteristics of the research patterns, tendencies, and methods in the papers. Data

were based on the online version of Science Citation Index Expanded from 1992 to 2009. Articles referring to climate change were assessed by distribution of source countries, source institutes, paper titles, author keywords, KeyWords Plus, abstracts, and the most cited articles in these years. By synthetic analysis of the four kinds of keywords, it was concluded that the items “temperature”, “environment”,“precipitation”,

“greenhouse gas”, “risk”, and “biodiversity” will be the foci of climate change research in the 21st century, while “model”, “monitoring”, and “remote sensing” will continue to be the leading research methods. A novel method, “phylogeography”, may have a strong application potential in the near future.

http://10.1016/j.gloplacha.2011.02.005

The Science Citation Index Expanded™ provides access to current and retrospective bibliographic information, author abstracts, and cited references found in approximately 5,900 of the world's leading scholarly science and technical journals covering more than 150 disciplines.

Key Advantages & Capabilities

•Allows researchers to conduct comprehensive searches that uncover all the relevant information they need

•Provides specialized access points implicit citations, title enhancements, and "see also" cross references that make information easier to understand and find

•Enables users to conduct multidisciplinary searches to discover hidden subject relationships

•Provides cited reference searching, the unique ISI search and retrieval feature that enables users to track the literature forward, backward, and through the database, breaking through disciplinary and geographic boundaries

http://www.twu.ca/library/wossci.htm

Thank you very much Sukla sir for this information.

Official respond from Thomson Reuters:

http://jmst.ntou.edu.tw/webdownload/SCIE_Letter.pdf

Thanks TecK Chaw Ling for the information.

I contacted Thomson Reuters customer support. Their explanation is pasted below.

The Science Citation Index (SCI) is a sub-set of the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE), containing journals that rank competitively among the most highly-cited core journals in their category or categories. The Science Citation Index Expanded is essentially the web version of what used to be a database available only on CDRom/Diskette.

When selecting the journals for the Science Citation Index we choose the top journals from each subject category and supplement this with top regional journals from each category to give broad geographic and multidisciplinary coverage.

The evaluation of and acceptance of a journal for the Science Citation Index Expanded or the Science Citation Index is essentially the same with one major difference.

This difference is in the application of citation analysis to the journal. While every science journal in our database is covered in the Science Citation Index Expanded and only those journals of relatively significantly higher citation impact are selected for the Science Citation Index. In other words, Science Citation Index covers only the most highly cited, highest impact journals in each category. This is because of the constraints of the CDROM and print media there is no difference in the selection process for Science Citation Index and Science Citation Index Expanded journals.

Anybody can contact them for clarifications.

Asia Pacific Customer Support

Thomson Reuters

India Toll-free: 0008004402182

I copied this from THOMSON REUTERS letter. Original file is also attached here. Hope it will be helpful.

"This letter is to explain the difference between Science Citation Index® (SCI) and Science Citation Index ExpandedTM (SCIE) databases.

We should be able to find all journals of SCI in SCIE database, but not all the

journals of SCIE are available in SCI. Just in case you are wondering about the

difference in journal quality between SCI and SCIE - please note that the evaluation of and acceptance of a journal for the SCI or the SCIE is essentially

the same with ONE major difference. The only difference is the storage media.

SCI is only available on CD/DVD format; however, SCIE is available online.

Therefore, the main reason for this is obvious because of the space constraint on SCI.

If you have any questions about this, please do not hesitate to contact us. I may

be reached at the e-mail address or telephone number below."

Russel,

The pdf in attachment is not from Thomson Reuters official website. You cannot depend on it. The information I posted on 22/11/2014 in this discussion is official from Thomson Reuters customer support.

I had this PDF with me from long back.

While applying for the teaching jobs at  NITs in India one must have seen the recruitment criteria includes one/two SCI journal publication. While it is evident that relatively new journals are all in SCIE but not in SCI, does it mean that people working in relatively new topics should not apply to NITs though their publication journals have good impact factor in SCIE?

Hi Himadri,

First of all, there is no difference between SCI and SCIE. Both are same. The major difference is storage media. Both SCI and SCIE journal rankings are given by Thomson Reuters using 'Journal Citation Reports (JCR)'. If you have any queries related to the difference you can contact Thomson Reuters India Toll-free: 0008004402182.

Rgrds,

SNREDDY

Hi Mr. Reddy

Thanks for replying. I know the difference what you are telling. To rephrase my question one may put: "why NITs want only SCI?. Is it the half baked or  lack of knowledge on their part or is it a tactical decision?

People generally term SCIE as SCI only. For an example: If you see MJCS journal website, it is mentioned that the journal is indexed in SCI. But it is SCIE indexed journal.

Very informative answer Mr. Narashimha. I hope this is going to be changed soon.

SCI and SCIE journals will be accepted with same value in educational domain.

SCIE journals are the expanded and extended list of SCI journals. In future some more good journals will be included in SCIE based on the quality. SCI or SCIE journals and the published papers are of same quality as for as its quality and recognition are concerned. In civil engineering field many journals listed in SCIE are of very high quality and publishing papers is these journals is very difficult. Once published, you have really achieved something impossible. Publish few papers in SCI or SCIE to have international recognition.

At present all premier institutes recognize papers published in SCI and SCIE as high quality papers and you earn maximum points.

If one looks at the main page of Thomson Reuters containing the master list of the journals they cover, one finds that they have THREE (where SCI is included in SCIE) source publication documents: 1) Arts and Humanities Citation Index Source Publication, 2) Science Citation Index Expanded Source Publication, and 3) Social Sciences Citation Index Source Publication. Also, they say that the selection criteria for SCI and SCIE journals are the same. It seems to me that the distinction between SCI and SCIE is disappearing. Journals in both are (equally) very good.

I do agree with Mr. Ismail Ababneh that both SCI and SCIE journals are same form the point of quality and reputation.

I do agree with Mr. Ismail Ababneh that both SCI and SCIE journals are same form the point of quality and reputation.

Dear Himadri Nayak

Since there is a space constraint issue behind choosing the journals in the SCI list. It is obvious that all SCIE indexed journals will not get chance to be selected in the small list which will be called as SCI indexed.

It is something like: B.Tech degree from NITs and IITs are equivalent in all respects. But People may differentiate between these two. So, decision while recruiting  faculty positions based on publication in SCI indexed journals may depend on the perception  and knowledge of the recruitment board also. The criteria which NITs are following at present for filling up their faculty positions is still not time tested. I think that revision of the criteria  may be demanded if NITs become unable to fill up their faculty positions for a long period of time due to unavailability of applicants with published papers in SCI indexed journals. But this debate cannot resolved here. 

SCI is printed and CD version of company whereas SCI-Expanded is web version and it is allowing croos-search between the databases; also SCI-Expanded covered more journals (covered 8800 journals; December 24, 2015) than SCI (covered 3746 core journals).

 please refer

http://jmst.ntou.edu.tw/webdownload/SCIE_Letter.pdf

Quality wise there is no difference between SCI & SCIE. As per my perception new journals are adding in SCIE list rather than SCI.

Given Below the Answer by GaryLiang Senior Regional Manager, Thomson Reuter:

We should be able to find all journals of SCI in SCIE database, but not all the

journals of SCIE are available in SCI. Just in case you are wondering about the

difference in journal quality between SCI and SCIE - please note that the

evaluation of and acceptance of a journal for the SCI or the SCIE is essentially

the same with ONE major difference. The only difference is the storage media.

SCI is only available on CD/DVD format; however, SCIE is available online.

Therefore, the main reason for this is obvious because of the space constraint on

SCI.

I agree with Narasimha's opinion. 

- SCIE is an international and interdisciplinary index, covering more than 8,500 notable and significant journals, across 150 disciplines. SCIE is available online through Web of Science. 

- SCI is a subset of SCIE, covering only the most highly cited & high impact factor Journals in each category. SCI is available on CD-ROM and in print.

Best Regards,

Pham

Dear sir,

"Every science journal in our database is covered in the Science Citation Index Expanded and only those journals of relatively significantly HIGHER citation impact are selected for the Science Citation Index."

Both are same. Their selection process is same. Only difference is the avalibility of them. SCi is available in CD ROM and SCIE is available online.

More likely, it does not mean SCI and SCIE are synonymous.

Modern physic letter A -world scientific Visual computer Springer

Article A novel dehazing model for remote sensing images

" The Science Citation Index (SCI) is a highly selective subset of journals found in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE). Journals in SCI are typically the most consistently high impact titles in many scientific disciplines. "

https://clarivate.com/essays/journal-selection-process/